Allerdale Council staff and officers have been praised for their work to continue delivering services throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Councillor Marion Fitzgerald, who is responsible for policy, governance and people resources, told a virtual meeting of the council’s executive on Wednesday that she believed they should be “justly proud” the authority had hit most of its targets for services in the first quarter of its 2020/21 interim delivery plan.

The meeting heard that, of the 39 council projects and activities set out in the interim delivery plan agreed by the council in June, 82 per cent were on target, 15 per cent close to target and three per cent off target.

Coun Fitzgerald said: “I think it’s been a remarkable achievement during the pandemic that our services have been kept running as normally as possible while having to deal with all of the additional pressures of the pandemic.

“The fact that much of this work has been done by officers and members working from home with the assistance of our IT department I really think has been something to be proud of.”

One area which fell short of the target it had been set by the council was bin collections, as it was revealed that the council had recorded 103 missed bins per 100,000 during collections up to June 30.

However, Coun Fitzgerald stressed that that was still a 99.9 per cent success rate, despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, and Mike Johnson, the council’s acting leader, felt it showed the “high expectations” the council had of its services that it considered that needed improvement.

"I think it's a real credit to the staff that we've been able to maintain such a high level of performance at a time when the organisation has been so stretched in responding to COVID-19," he said.

"To keep so many of the indicators at our target levels, in addition to the delivery of the new services such as administration of the business grants and the Test and Trace is something that I hope everyone is very proud of.

"I believe that we are striking the right balance between delivering what is needed now and putting in place building blocks for the future."

He added: “Our indicator for missed bins shows as red but we get it right 99.9 per cent of the time.

“I really think that this demonstrates we are committed to providing outstanding local services.”

Allerdale Waste Services took over the delivery of the waste and recycling services in April after the previous contract with FCC Environment ended.

The council said at the end of July that it had collected more than 13,000 tonnes of waste and emptied 1.2million bins during its first three months of operation.